


Pensée Mais Jamais Dit

by madamedarque



Category: A Place of Greater Safety - Hilary Mantel
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Date, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:44:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madamedarque/pseuds/madamedarque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are more incompetent than usual, Maître Perrin observes drily, when that frightening-looking young advocate deigns to direct a glance in your direction. You drop any important document entrusted to you. You become incapable of speech. And the king’s councilors, they snicker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pensée Mais Jamais Dit

It is not that he doesn’t wish to see Georges-Jacques d’Anton again. In the daylight Camille dares not even plumb the depths of his imaginings, the unspeakable detail of his fantasies—the number of times he has pressed his face into the bed sheets, gasping at the ghostly sensation of d’Anton’s calloused fingers. At night he tries out the name, tasting the syllables: _Georges, Georges-Jacques._ His voice never fails him, on these occasions. When he whispers, it’s enough to drown out the world.

But his private preoccupations do present something of a public inconvenience. You are more incompetent than usual, Maître Perrin observes drily, when that frightening-looking young advocate deigns to direct a glance in your direction. You drop any important document entrusted to you. You become incapable of speech. And the king’s councilors, they snicker.

“Don’t be unkind, Camille,” he says, his hand tangling in the dark curls. “Think of all I’ve done for you.”

Camille gives an involuntary start: he is unable to stop himself from recoiling, although he has no reason to flinch. He cannot meet Perrin’s eyes. But the voice, when it reaches his ears, is calm, compassionate. “It’s all right, my dear boy. I understand entirely. Just pretend I’m him.” 

You could never be him, thinks Camille. That much is clear. 

******

D’Anton catches at the sleeve of his black lawyer’s coat, like the drooping feathers of a rare bird, pinches the fabric in an aggressive grip.

“Can I see you again?” 

It is somehow not a question: more a statement of intent.

A ringlet of hair falls into his face. Camille flicks it away self-consciously, watching d’Anton’s eyes follow the movement. “You don’t see enough of me here?” 

D’Anton smirks. “I haven’t seen nearly enough of you yet.”

Camille finds that his mouth has gone dry, his facility of speech fled. “What do you suggest?” he asks, faintly. It was not really what he meant to say, not at all, but he cannot form any other words.

“Oh, you know what I mean. I feel like I never see you outside of work. Come to dinner sometime, won’t you?”

He gives Camille a jovial slap on the shoulder, and strolls away without a backward glance to commiserate with a colleague. It occurs to Camille that he could have been mistaken: but surely d’Anton wants what other men want? Or why bother, why else even speak to him? He knows from experience that men like Georges-Jacques d’Anton only bother with him for one reason.

Perrin slides onto the bench beside him. “It will be helpful if you do not humiliate yourself while Maître d’Anton is speaking,” he suggests pleasantly.

“I am flattered to be the object of such debilitating jealousy.”

“Tread carefully, boy,” Perrin snaps. He collects himself, viscerally, and dabs a handkerchief to his forehead. “And incidentally, while you were waxing poetic about Maître d’Anton’s keen oratorical skills and prodigious intellect—by which I assume you meant his mouth and cock—to nearly the entire membership of the Picardy Bar, I was collecting the necessary documentation for this case. Which seems to me to illuminate some difference in our characters.” 

Never mind that. Maître d’Anton can turn a jury to his advantage with a single crook of his finger, a well-chosen turn of phrase. He looks, Camille thinks, faintly bored. But when he walks past the opposing bench, he winks. Camille unfurls like a rose, flushing scarlet.

Maître Perrin looks sour for the rest of the afternoon.

******

Georges-Jacques picks him up at the door of the Café du Foy. “You said you would come to dinner,” he points out. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“Well, then.”

D’Anton can’t understand why someone would decline to eat. But this notion of mealtimes is very wearing, in Camille’s view; it makes people expect things of him. They give him sideways glances, and chew their food pointedly.

“I need coffee,” says Camille.

D’Anton grins. “Walk with me.”

The Seine is a pale shimmering blue, torchlight reflected across the river in narrow columns, the world bathed in crepuscular light. They walk side-by-side, a bit awkwardly, d’Anton speaking easily in low, sonorous tones. Camille finds himself leaning in to him, brushing his hand; accidents of touch multiply, without conscious will. 

Georges-Jacques takes his arm.

******

He kisses d’Anton breathlessly against the wall, attempting to impress. He’ll know where you learned that, Camille thinks, treacherously, as d’Anton’s rough hands explore his hair, his clothes. He perceives, abstractly, that the hands betray his origins: the nails well-kept, well-maintained, but the rest of the skin sunburned and callused, a scar running up the thumb of his right hand. How had he received that injury? Camille raises the hand to his mouth, traces the old wound with his lips. When he takes a finger and sucks, deliberately, d’Anton shivers.

“Camille…”

“Was there something you wanted?” he asks, looking up through his lashes.

D’Anton laughs a little, uneasily. “I haven’t done this since school.” He strokes Camille’s hair shakily, as if he expects some calamity to occur: but there is no calamity forthcoming, Camille thinks. There’s only me.

He asks, “How did you get that scar?”

The silence is broken by a clatter down the alleyway, a sound of raised voices. D’Anton jerks his hand violently, flinching from Camille as if he were diseased. 

A splash in the river: the noise passes on. It is all over now, Camille thinks in despair, over before it began. He stares at the ground. But when he dares to raise his eyes, d’Anton is observing him with a curious expression, as if had never really seen him before.

He raises a hand, and Camille wonders for a moment if he is going to hit him. Instead his fingertips brush the lightest of touches across Camille’s cheek, stroking in a circular pattern and tracing a line to the white throat, where the pulse hammers an irregular rhythm.

“Are you frightened of me, little Camille?” he asks softly. “I just want to get to know you better.”

“I assume you intend that in a biblical sense.” 

The hand stills: Camille arches his throat wantonly, needing the resumption of movement. He can sense the catch in d’Anton’s breath, the change in the atmosphere.

“I think,” says d’Anton calmly, “that we had better continue this somewhere more private.”

******

“You didn’t think I meant your dreadful garret, did you?” he asks, leading Camille by the hand. “From the few times I have had the misfortune of setting foot there, it gave no impression of discretion.” 

“I like your apartment,” says Camille.

“You’ve been here before.”

“Yes, but—” He cannot say that he likes it because Georges-Jacques is imprinted here, in every object: bed, table, writing desk, pens, cloaks, valise, coffee-pot, books spilling from their shelves, in English and Italian. D’Anton has gone in search of wine. Camille feels suddenly fatigued by worry and lust; he would like to sit here, among d’Anton’s things, for a very long time. 

But then Georges-Jacques is back, plying him with drink, filling his glass to the brim. They sit at the little table, d’Anton drinking directly from the bottle and pouring for Camille, whom he seems to imagine is a delicate creature in need of elegant glasses with flute stems. He is unfailingly solicitous, asking Camille if he is cold, if he wants more wine: but his hands shake when he pours. 

“You don’t have to get me drunk, you know,” says Camille. “I would have done anything you wanted.”

D’Anton looks at him again with that curious stare. “Anything?” he asks, smirking lightly.

Camille swallows. “Anything. I always wanted to.” 

A silence. D’Anton stands up and stretches, languidly lighting a candle. He wanders to the bed, picking up a book and examining the spine, tossing over his shoulder with a casual air:

“Show me, then.”

What does he expect, Camille wonders, in a moment of blind panic, but then d’Anton’s hands are on him, pulling him down, and a flood of relief washes over him. D’Anton wants what other men want, then, after all. 

He knows that he can impress now. Camille unlaces d’Anton’s breeches with skillful fingers, and his esteemed colleague groans lasciviously and strokes his cheek. He catches d’Anton’s fingers in his hand, pressing them to his mouth reverently. 

D’Anton laughs, a sharp edge of arousal in his voice. “That was not the purpose I had in mind for your mouth.”

“I want to know how you got that scar,” says Camille quietly.

“What?”

“The scar on your right hand. Did someone hurt you?”

“That is a peculiar inquiry. At this time, if you see what I mean.” D’Anton is looking down at him speculatively, and it occurs to Camille how ridiculous he must appear right now, clinging to that scarred hand like a drowning man.

Still, he says, trembling: “I won’t do anything else. Until you tell me.”

“Oh, a bargain,” d’Anton says. “You delight me. How about this, my darling—I tell you, after you suck me to within an inch of my life.” 

It seems to me that my position might be a bit stronger here, thinks Camille. But then, he has never been able to say no to Georges-Jacques. 

******

The floor is hard under his knees, and d’Anton is rough with his hair, sometimes pulling it back, sometimes turning the curls in idle circles. Camille finds that he is shaking violently. He worries that he is perhaps not giving his best performance: but Georges-Jacques seems more than enthused. 

He says, “Fucking hell, Camille, you’re good at that.”

Yes, well, we all like to be recognized for our efforts—but Camille can’t help but wonder where d’Anton imagines he acquired his experience, and he feels his flesh crawl with shame. Does d’Anton picture the silken cushions of a fashionable lady’s boudoir, the too-pungent scent of lilacs and perfume, the odor of sweat, the powdered curls? Or does he envision the sordid little side street, the insinuating smirks, an indelicate proposition, the undignified groans?

But even that isn’t enough to put Camille off, because this is _Georges-Jacques, Georges-Jacques_ , lawyer extraordinaire, object of nighttime fantasies and probate court daydreams, currently releasing a stream of half-finished expletives and endearments into the heavy, sweet air. When he climaxes he threads his fingers in Camille’s hair, exhaling sharply, and Camille feels the tremors sliding down his body, his knees shaking.

They stay there for some time, Camille kneeling unsteadily on the floor. D’Anton doesn’t speak, doesn’t indicate pleasure or disapproval; he doesn’t seem to remember that Camille is there at all. A cold dread sinks down into his stomach. It had seemed so clear, d’Anton had been so clear: but then you are not the best judge of character, Camille, as Maître Perrin says. Best let me handle these things. So that you avoid embarrassment.

Camille would like to break the silence, but his voice is no longer the instrument of his will.

After what seems an eternity d’Anton blinks, as if emerging from a fog, recalling the humble supplicant at his feet. He pulls Camille to his feet in a daze, laughs and kisses him a little. “I don’t know where you learned that,” he says. “But I express my eternal gratitude to your instructor.”

Tears well in Camille’s eyes. It seems to occur to d’Anton that he should reciprocate; he fumbles with buttons and laces in a charmingly drunken manner, and when the heavy palms brush his groin, Camille gasps and buries his head in his shoulder. D’Anton looks bemused, and then laughs uproariously.

“My dear,” he says in his cultured barrister’s voice, “I have often been complimented for my talents in the bedroom, I am not ashamed to admit. But such alacrity is flattering beyond belief. Although really, I hardly had time to—”

At that Camille lets out a sob, although he promised himself he would not, could not do this in front of Georges-Jacques. He clings to d’Anton’s massive overcoat, to weigh himself to the ground, feeling the seed leaking into his clothes. He cries. It is not what he would choose, but there it is. He cries as if he’s dying, as if he’s lost something precious: as if he has found himself at sea and lost sight of the shore.

******

D’Anton leans back in shock: post-coital sobs are new to him as well, Camille imagines. He looks as if he might say something, but thinks better of it. He shakes his head, as if to say, why me? 

But he leads Camille to the bed and peels off his clothes carefully, like a child. Threadbare coat, a cravat that hardly deserves the name (“Where did you find this? The reject pile of some vagabond scrounger?”), ragged shirt, soiled breeches. D’Anton looks at the little bundle of clothes with distaste; after all, he is fastidious about his appearance. His cravat is always dazzlingly white. 

“Tomorrow,” says d’Anton. “I’m buying you a shirt.”

Impossibly humiliating, thinks Camille. You finally get to do what you’ve wanted since you set eyes on him, and you snivel all over his coat. And then he feels the need to express the intention of buying you clothes, because your usual apparel is so disquieting: that is to say not fit to appear in the second-floor apartment of Georges-Jacques d’Anton, _avocat_. 

“Perhaps we could burn it,” Camille suggests. The tears have dried in white streaks on his cheeks, which he knows gives him a slightly savage appearance.

D’Anton looks at him a little sadly. Or conceivably he is just tired. He strips off the rest of his clothes carelessly, and climbs into bed. Camille stands by nervously, his hands twisting in the bed sheets; his skin, when he looks down, is nearly translucent. 

“What are you waiting for?” A trace of irritation. “Get in.”

Camille hesitates, and then slides carefully underneath the sheets, attempting not to disturb them. They feel like silk on his skin. The only sound in the room is the stirring of the air, and d’Anton’s smooth breathing. For some indiscernible reason, Camille finds himself holding his breath.

He ventures, tentatively: “Georges-Jacques?”

“What?”

“Your scar. How did you get it?”

D’Anton turns on his side. The candles have been blown out now; it is too dark to make out his features. But Camille can hear his voice, deep and resonant. A flicker of warmth curls in his stomach.

“I don’t remember, honestly,” he says, chuckling softly. “I suspect I had a run-in with some livestock. You know how it is in childhood, always turning up with inexplicable cuts and scratches, and mother moaning and shrieking to call the priest.”

I don’t suppose I do know how it is, thinks Camille. At the Place des Armes we had no livestock, and shall we just say, Madeleine Desmoulins was not the sort to moan and shriek. But it is a piece of d’Anton’s past, a treasure, and he draws it close to himself in the silence of the darkened room. D’Anton seems to have fallen asleep. Camille curls up around him, running his long fingers lightly through the auburn hair, tracing every scar.

“I’m buying you a shirt,” murmurs d’Anton sleepily.

Camille flinches a little at the disturbance, but the tension settled in his gut releases a little. After all, Georges-Jacques had not screamed at him, or thrown him out, or called him a whore; he had even let him sleep in bed like his—

There are some things that must be thought and never said. Not even whispered, under cover of darkness. But the thought that has been conceived cannot be unremembered; you are condemned to imagine the woman d’Anton will marry, the woman who will sleep rightfully in his bed. Your sleep will be fitful, after that.

Camille will not cry again. He feels drained of tears. He stares at the ceiling, silvery in the moonlight, and strokes Georges-Jacques d’Anton’s hair.

**Author's Note:**

> Many of the details within this fic are emergent from discussions with oubliance and theotherclio. Thank you to both of them for their support, encouragement, and excellent headcanon.


End file.
